Star Light, Star Bright
by Wilusa
Summary: An earlier fic referred to a crisis involving marooned children. This is it!
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: _Highlander_ and its canon characters are the property of Davis/Panzer Productions or a successor corporation; no copyright infringement is intended.

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With her back to the window - head down, eyes closed behind wraparound protective glasses - Xanda Veniti activated the control that would part the heavy curtains.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes. Peered into the carefully positioned mirror.

She wasn't seeing her reflection - that of a strong young woman, Caucasian, with close-cropped dark hair. The mirror was showing her something outside the window.

_Far_ outside the window.

She examined it closely.

And shuddered.

She closed the curtains, removed her glasses. Then she took a deep breath, and walked out into the windowless corridor where two dozen children were waiting. Not playing, not milling about...just huddled together, too frightened even to cry.

"All right," she said, making herself sound more confident than she felt. "We'll only be outdoors for three minutes." _Unless some of you break down, and I have to come back for you. _"Make sure your coveralls really do cover everything, and your helmets are secure. You'll be able to see a little, through the faceplates. But you won't have any real need to see, if you listen to my voice and stay close to me."

Their helmets would supply oxygen and transmit sound, at its actual volume. Incoming sound could be muted, but not so easily that children might do it accidentally.

She made a quick check to see that everyone mature enough to understand her instructions had complied. Took care of the little ones. After donning her own helmet, she gathered up the toddlers and held all three in her arms.

"Now let's recite that poem I taught you!" Switching from Standard to the Old English from which it had developed, she led them in an encouragingly loud chorus of:

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...

"I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight."

"Remember," she cautioned, "don't look up at the star while we're running! Just know it's there, and we're wishing on it."

"Whadda we wish for?" a small voice asked.

"For you kids to have a wonderful new home, where you'll never have problems like this again. And it's a wish we _know_ will come true. So while these next few minutes are going to be unpleasant - even painful - you can feel sure, the whole time, that you'll be able to look back on it later as a grand adventure!"

Another small voice said, "I love you, Xanda." Several more chimed in.

With a lump in her throat, she said, "I love you too. All of you.

"Okay. Now I'm going to open the door." She could reach that remote control with her foot. "And we all just run, straight ahead, got it? I'm going to keep reciting the poem out loud, so you can hear me and stay as close as you can. Ready...

_"Go!"_

But no one did. Instead, all the children screamed when the door opened, and they were hit by a blast of outdoor heat.

Xanda gritted her teeth. "Yes, that was bad. Take a deep breath, everyone." The babies in her arms were bawling, and she heard pathetic whimpers from the others. But they couldn't stop now. "_Again._ Let's do it and get it over with. Ready...go!"

This time, everyone did begin running, clustered around their leader. Xanda forced herself to ignore their screams - and the searing pain that threatened to take her breath away - and keep repeating the poem.

_"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight..._

_"I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight."_

What she really wished was that their garments could prevent burns. They were flameproof, couldn't catch fire...but at this air temperature, they couldn't protect sensitive human skin. Only their helmets provided that degree of protection.

_"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight..._

_"I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight!"_

She was staggering now. How could the wailing children in her arms have become as heavy as adults?

And her faceplate limited her range of vision. She couldn't make out where any of her other charges were!

_Three minutes. However long it may seem, we can't have been out here more than three minutes._

_**"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight..."**_

Then strong hands were grabbing her, unintentionally inflicting more pain as they pulled her into a different type of "corridor." Enclosing a flight of steps that she knew led to the interior of a spaceship.

"The children," she gasped, trying to look back. "Are any of them still out there?"

"No," a male voice assured her. "We've got them all. Most of them passed out, though."

"That's good." Her own knees buckled, but she was determined _not to_ pass out.

The children's burns would be completely healed by the time they came to. As for her, she could already feel the damaged skin beginning to mend. She was still in pain, would be for several more minutes; but she'd experienced rapid healing often enough that she could take it in stride.

In a minute or so, she'd even be able to greet the pilot of the rescue ship with a handshake and a smile.

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"It's an honor for me to meet you, _Sera_ Veniti," the pilot said as they exchanged that handshake. He did indeed seem awed.

"Not _Sera_ Veniti," she told him, "just plain Xanda. To you, the kids, everyone.

"And I'm the one who should feel honored to meet you. My husband and I couldn't have lived with ourselves if we hadn't reported the situation we found, and tried to help by at least gathering some of the kids together. The real heroes are people like you, who were tens of light-years away, under no obligation to risk your lives by responding to our SOS."

"Thank you, Xanda." He was actually blushing. "I'm Tal. Short for Talisman."

The name didn't strike her as unusual. In her era, people could be named almost anything - _and_ change their names at will, to almost anything else, as long as they informed some level of government.

He looked younger than she, no older than his early twenties. But since he'd undoubtedly Transitioned, she knew looks counted for nothing. His age in standard Earth-years could be anything from those early twenties to upwards of four million.

"I'm sorry we couldn't get the ship closer to your compound," he went on. "You didn't have to bring the kids over, my co-pilot and I would have done it -"

"No, the kids wouldn't have trusted anyone but my husband or me." Reading his expression, she explained, "And if you're wondering about him, I haven't even told him your ship's arrived.

"Right now, he's hard at work on the science project that brought us here. Studying this...bizarre destabilization of space-time. Conditions are changing rapidly, and we have to keep abreast of them.

"I risked looking at..._it_...in the mirror before I left the house. I swear the color is deeper than yesterday, and the disk larger."

Tal frowned. "Yes, it's definitely burning helium."

After they'd spent a few seconds pondering that development, she said, "Anyway, my husband's been outdoors way more than I have this week, getting the other fifty kids aboard two earlier ships."

_Not to mention all the foraging he's done for provisions, in abandoned stores and homes._ They'd come to the planet anticipating they'd have a much shorter stay, and wouldn't be feeding anyone but themselves.

"I know it would have been a little less hot if I'd waited till after sundown. But I figured we shouldn't risk any waste of time. Your co-pilot's putting the kids in suspended animation now, right?"

"Right."

"Suspended animation" was a euphemism. Xanda knew the children were being temporarily "killed" - via the same quick, painless "lethal injection" used in planned Transitions - and would then be kept in an airtight compartment till the end of what might be a yearlong journey. There was no alternative; provisions for living passengers would have doubled the weight of the ship.

"That's all of them from this continent," she said somberly. "I feel terrible that we couldn't reach the hundreds on other continents. We found abandoned aircraft that we knew how to fly, but not enough fuel."

"It's going to work out," Tal assured her. "Volunteers are headed for all those regions, and they have the best kind of sensing equipment. They'll be able to detect human life-forms, even if the kids are 'dead.'

"But if you and your husband hadn't scanned for other human life when you first got here...if you'd taken for granted the evacuation had been complete...all those Ever-Youngs in orphanages would have suffered terribly. For how long, no one can say, if they kept 'dying' and coming back to life. In the end, they would have been vaporized. And the bastards who abandoned them would have gotten off scot-free."

"I'm not even sure why we thought to do a scan." She shook her head. "Just scientists routinely running checks on everything in a new environment, I guess."

"How are you planning to leave?" he asked anxiously. "We couldn't take two more people aboard this ship - we're at maximum weight - but I get the impression you didn't want us to, anyway.

"I know there can't be anything larger than an aircar in that hangar of yours. And you're cutting it awfully close. It may take _us_ six months to get to the wormhole! The _usable_ wormhole."

"You're right, we don't have a ship." She tried to sound unconcerned. "Colleagues dropped us off here. And there's a plan in place for getting us away safely."

"Well, I hope it's a good plan. You and your husband are citizens the Human Worlds can't afford to lose." Then his voice changed, sounding almost boyish. "You know you two are sort of..._legendary_, right? Is it true what they say, that you've been married to each other for a million years?"

She wouldn't have thought anything could make her laugh today. But this did.

" 'Legendary'? That's a hoot!

"Yes, we have been married, very happily, for a million years. But hey, we're only a little over a million years old!

"We met and fell in love in our twenties. Transitioned together, hand in hand, then got married on our Transition Day, so it could be one big celebration. And we've never regretted it for a minute.

"But...there's a question new friends always want to ask us, and for some reason, they're always hesitant about doing it. _No_, neither of us was a virgin when we met! We're real, flesh-and-blood human beings, not characters in a romance novel."

"That's great." Tal too was smiling, the horror of a destabilized star momentarily forgotten. "Have you had many children?"

"Two hundred fifteen," she said proudly. They had of course been conceived through cloning techniques that required only parental DNA (not sperm or eggs), then carried to term in uterine replicators. But they were, genetically, hers and her husband's. "Raising every one of them was a delight. And none of _our_ children ever had an injury that caused a premature Transition.

"Neither of us had parents who were married, even briefly. We grew up in loving homes! And there was never any ill will. But every one of our parents had hundreds of children, with hundreds of different partners. By the time we were born, they'd given up trying to keep track of their offspring.

"I guess we've gone to the other extreme. We try to stay in touch with all of them. But..." Somber again, she admitted, "It isn't easy, once they're grown. Two hundred siblings born in different centuries or millennia...can't have any two close together, because of the risk of overpopulation. After all, hardly anyone ever _dies_.

"The siblings barely know each other. They're uncomfortable at having to share their parents with so many other people. And still, they're having widely-spaced children of their own, needing to deal with all of _them_.

"Parent-child bonds don't seem to last. But _raising_ another human being is wonderful! And if the _parents_ have a lasting love...that's all anyone can ask for."

From the way Tal hung on her every word, she suspected he really was young.

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Before heading back to the house, she called her husband, to arrange for him to come to the door and yell. That would be enough to keep her moving in the right direction.

She was already imagining herself in his arms.

But she thought of a question she'd meant to ask Tal. "You said that if we hadn't reported what happened, the people who'd abandoned those Ever-Youngs would have gotten off scot-free. _Are_ they going to be prosecuted? You're sure?"

"Yes," he said grimly. "There's even talk of reinstating the death penalty. But beheading's too merciful. They should be sent back here, and left to be boiled alive!

"As if things weren't bad enough...the worst _mistake_ in the history of humanity was followed by the worst _crime."_

She thought about that. "In terms of numbers, more innocents have been slaughtered in the past. And all these youngsters may ultimately be saved. But for the sheer horror of the crime, the agony being inflicted on defenseless children...you may be right about its being the worst.

"And there's no doubt about the _mistake_. I know some of the scientists who approved the plan for creating and stabilizing that Inner System Wormhole, and they'll never forgive themselves.

"My husband and I were born on Silverthorn. But even we off-worlders will grieve, for the rest of our lives, over their having accidentally destroyed this star.

"And this planet...Earth."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Six weeks later.**_

"This crew elected me captain," Duncan MacLeod said in a flint-hard voice. "I'm in command. Only I have the authority to make this choice...and I've made it. _I'm staying."_

_**"No."**_ Another voice, as determined as his own. "For whatever difference it makes, you wouldn't have been elected captain without my vote. And you'd voted for me!

"More to the point, I know the age of everyone here. And I'll admit, in this crisis, that my own birth certificate is a fake. Off by centuries. I was a foundling - had been abandoned for some reason. I don't know my exact birth date, and I've always been embarrassed about it.

"But what I do know is that I'm the oldest in this group, the oldest by far. Certainly older than _my_ _son_."

In this era, that was a relationship that didn't have to be kept secret.

Before MacLeod could cut in, Methos continued, "If one of us has to stay here - and possibly die - it should be me, because I've had the longest life.

"But there's also another reason. I have a ward - we're not related, but I love him as much as I do my son, in a different way. He's physically and mentally a two-year-old, but he's been a two-year-old for millions of years. I know how valuable _his_ life is. _And_ how easily he could have wound up like these children, if there'd been no one to step in and provide for him! So I can appreciate and empathize with the Ever-Youngs, more than anyone else can. I'll gladly give my life for one of them."

"If you throw your life away," MacLeod argued, "_you'll_ be deserting the child you're already caring for."

"Will I? Can you honestly tell me you...and your firstborn son and grandson...don't love him as much as I do?"

Reluctantly, MacLeod mumbled, "No."

This was a core family in which parent-child bonds _had_ lasted, and grown ever stronger. Despite the ironic fact that neither Methos nor MacLeod had "raised" his son. (MacLeod had fathered, and participated in raising, many younger children - as had Richie and Dare. But they'd eventually lost track of them. That was the norm in this era, and they'd had to accept it, however sadly.)

"But that means," he persisted, "that I also understand and value _these_ children as much as you do."

Methos could only say, quietly, _"It's the age thing, MacLeod."_

MacLeod knew what he meant, and _couldn't_ tell the others. That he was the "oldest by far" not only of their small crew, but of the human race.

_And I may be the third-oldest. There are friends I've lost track of, who I hope are still alive. But the only "Original Immortal" intermediate in age between Methos and me, who I __**know**__ is alive, is baby Marcellus._

He said forcefully, "We have to make this decision _now_. And I'm the captain! I'm going to stay."

Methos shot back, "What about the old rule that a captain never deserts his ship?"

"That's out of context...and ridiculous!"

"I demand a vote!"

As they stood glaring at each other, the "Incoming Message" signal chimed.

Sighing, MacLeod flipped a switch and said, "Yes? MacLeod here."

"Our problem just got worse, Captain." Everyone in the cabin could hear the voice of Lia Kinvail, the one crewperson who hadn't gotten back to their ship. "I've found three more small children. So to have a safe weight, we'll have to leave two of us adults behind, not just one."

The squabbling father and son took simultaneous deep breaths.

Then they locked eyes.

Oldest.

Maybe third-oldest.

MacLeod said softly, "This doesn't make the problem worse, Lia.

"This solves it."


	3. Chapter 3

"MacLeod! We aren't _necessarily_ going to die here. But we will, if you slam this plane into a hilltop and the fuel tank explodes!"

"Sorry." MacLeod imagined he felt himself sweating. He really had pulled the nose of the plane up with only seconds to spare. "I could barely see it through all the smoke, and I didn't think we were anywhere near hills this high."

"Err on the safe side," Methos said grimly. "And don't make guesses about things we can't see! We can't trust _any_ instrument readings."

MacLeod took brief comfort in the thought _At least he knows me well enough to be sure I wasn't on the verge of crashing deliberately._ He wouldn't have done that with any other person aboard - nor would Methos. But he suspected either of them, if he'd been alone, might have made a snap decision to end it all.

There were moments when MacLeod thought he didn't want to survive the horrific end of Earth. But moments after having that thought, he'd find himself wanting desperately to go on living, to see again all the people he cared for. He'd never had a chance to say goodbyes!

He knew he should be glad Richie and his son Dare were working on a terraforming project, so far away that they wouldn't even have learned of this crisis yet, let alone received the message he'd sent. Glad that when he and Methos had stopped off on the newly-settled planet Nineveh to ask Nick Wolfe to take temporary custody of Marcellus, Nick had been incommunicado, conducting some kind of research in a diving bell on the ocean floor. They'd had to leave Marc with his wife Merith.

He knew those men. If they'd learned what was going on, all three would have wanted to join the volunteers - Nick, despite the fact that he and Merith were raising a child of their own. If he'd been unable to talk them out of it, all of them might be stranded on the dying Earth.

_But I so wish I could see them, hear their voices, one last time!_

It was true that he and Methos weren't "necessarily" going to die. But they both knew the odds were against their surviving.

Their ship had left, bound for that faraway wormhole, with its child passengers in "suspended animation." They were sure there were no more Ever-Youngs in the region they'd covered; but they didn't know the fate of other ships, the success rate in other regions. By now, a series of coronal mass ejections - "solar flares" - had made communication among the volunteer groups impossible.

But before that happened, a rumor had spread: that the scientists who'd sent out the SOS were still on the planet, didn't have a ship, and presumably expected to be picked up by the colleagues who'd brought them there. Volunteers had conceived the notion that if any of them were stranded, they might be able to make it to the scientists' compound and "hitch a ride" with _them_. The compound, specially designed - if hastily constructed - to provide maximum protection from heat, was said to be on the east coast of North America, with markings that would make it visible from the air.

There was no proof of any of that. And if it ever had been a viable option, MacLeod and Methos knew they might be too late. The scientists might already have left. They might be dead - or if they weren't, their colleagues might have lost contact with them and mistakenly written them off as dead. Or the scientists, fretting over the children, might have waited too long to request their pick-up - in which case they, and anyone with them, would perish before help arrived.

But it was better to try something than to try nothing.

MacLeod narrowly missed another hilltop.

Before Methos could protest, he spat out, "_Sorry!_ The continent's one big forest fire - I didn't know Earth still had this many trees."

"We need to get over the ocean," Methos said gently. "Or the ocean _bed_, if the whole thing's evaporated. We should still be able to see where the coastline was, and follow it. So we have to pick a direction, hope it's east, and stick with it till we're sure, one way or the other.

"You've been at this long enough. Let me take the controls."

"We agreed, an hour for each of us -"

"And by now, our timepieces aren't any more accurate than our frigging compass. I can see you're fatigued - that's all that matters. Come on, switch it over!"

Sighing, MacLeod complied.

Fortunately, switching the controls didn't necessitate their actually changing places. Wearing ultra-protective garments with built-in waste recycling and a week's supply of oxygen and nutrients, they barely had room to move in the cramped cockpit.

And if the temperature soared much above what they'd encountered thus far, they _still_ wouldn't be protected.

"You should rest," Methos said firmly. "Close your eyes! You need to rest _them_ for a while, so you'll be able to scan the coast for the scientists' compound."

"All right, all right." MacLeod really was too fatigued to argue.

Sleep was out of the question, buffeted as they were by solar winds. But he closed his eyes, tried to relax...and in a way, to prepare himself for death. By recalling, and appreciating, all the wonders he'd been able to experience during his incredibly long life...

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When humanity had made its leap into space, old feuds had been forgotten, and the United Nations had become a true world government.

Humans had learned to create, stabilize, and navigate wormholes. They'd terraformed and populated a dozen exoplanets, and were at work terraforming a dozen more. They hadn't encountered living members of another species with humanlike intelligence. But they'd found fossils and artifacts of three "candidate" species - gone extinct, due to abrupt climate change, before they got past the Stone Age. A grim suggestion that very few worlds might have been as lucky as Earth.

Early on, scientists had made enough progress in genetic engineering that they could prevent further evolutionary changes in the species' appearance. Any possible future environments were to be adapted to humans, not vice versa! That had been a boon for Immortals: if evolution had proceeded in its undirected way, a five-million-year-old Immortal might have looked as out of place as _homo erectus._

Then they'd engineered a complete separation of sexual intercourse (still, arguably, humans' favorite pastime) and procreation. All human embryos came to be produced through cloning techniques (with one to four biological "parents"), and gestated in uterine replicators. But they were still born as infants, complete with navels and vestigial organs, and lovingly raised by one or more of their parents - most often by an old-fashioned "couple," opposite-sex or same-sex.

Finally, scientists had made the greatest breakthrough of all..._extreme_ life extension. Through genetic engineering, they'd transformed the next generation into a new species, _homo_ _sapiens longivivax_ (meaning "long-lived"). In a nutshell: the new humans were exactly like "Immortals"! Evidently, that was the only way life extension could be achieved. The "first death" was euphemistically called "Transition," and would come to be, in most cases, planned: a ceremony involving a quick, painless "lethal injection," followed by a family celebration. At a time of the young person's choosing - usually, age thirty. A "Quickening" was called a "Transfer." But no one expected deliberate beheadings. It was assumed deaths would only be caused by accidental decapitation, or by explosions.

No one expected to live forever, either. They knew that if they didn't die in "run-of-the-mill" explosions, they might someday be within range of a _catastrophic_ explosion: a supernova. Or perish in some other kind of cosmic disaster, in which their bodies would be either crushed or torn apart. But however long they lived, they'd enjoy perfect health and youthful vigor. And any given individual could hope, _realistically_, to live for millions of years.

Everyone was (or was at least thought to be), in the old-fashioned sense, sterile. But that wasn't a problem, because they'd been reproducing via cloning for a thousand years. Most adults loved babies and children, and communicated that attitude to their offspring; so there was no chance they'd ever _stop_ reproducing.

Some humans had chosen not to have genetically engineered "long-lived" children. So old-style humans (_homo sapiens brevivivax_) still existed, living by choice on their own bountiful planet, Primordia. They seemingly weren't jealous of those with lengthened life spans, since - while conventional "religions" had died out - almost everyone had come to believe in reincarnation. Besides, even Primordials enjoyed life expectancies of one hundred fifty healthy years, and painless production of offspring.

As far as the bemused "Original Immortals" knew, their secret had never become public knowledge. But now almost everyone was just like them! They'd happily blended in, no longer having to conceal anything but their actual birth dates. Some theorized that one or more of the scientists who made the breakthrough had known about Immortals. But most believed that since a mutation had undoubtedly produced _them_, it wasn't surprising that an "obvious" tweaking of the genome had produced the same result.

The Watchers had disbanded. But they'd presented a complete, unabridged copy of their still-secret Chronicles to the man they'd considered the best of the Immortals: Duncan MacLeod. On his death, it would pass to his son. (Though he himself privately thought his friend Nick was the "best" of them. He'd never ceased fighting crime and injustice. Yet after Joe Dawson initially misled the Watchers, they'd never learned Nick Wolfe or any of his aliases was an Immortal - in large part because he'd kept his vow, never taken a Quickening.)

For MacLeod, the era of swordfights, Quickenings, the "Game," and the dreaded "Gathering" (that had actually involved only Connor's subspecies) sometimes seemed so remote that it might have been a fantasy. He _needed_ to dip into the Chronicles, to convince himself it had all been real!

He'd learned some things that chilled him to the bone, even after the passage of millions of years. For example, that the Watchers had originally hoped to capture Methos and Darius, and force them into the Sanctuary.

He'd mentioned that to Methos. And Methos had recalled that he - as Watcher "Adam Pierson" - had uncovered details of the failed plot a thousand years later, and _tried_ to find and delete every mention of it. Obviously, he hadn't succeeded.

It was mere "ancient history" now, of course.

But MacLeod had never forgotten the people he'd cherished in those olden days. He could still picture Tessa, and "hear" her voice, as clearly as he had on their happiest day together. Nor had he let his skills wither. Swordsmanship and martial arts might have become "hobbies," but they'd always been hobbies at which he excelled.

Had his life become less exciting? Far from it. The new Age of Exploration had held thrills galore, for everyone.

On balance, MacLeod thought, his time on Earth - and other worlds - had been happy. And younger "long-lifers" had known far fewer traumas than he.

_But even now, when most of us can hope to live for millions of years, humans are always in a hurry. Rush, rush, rush. And in trying to save people a little time, scientists made the greatest __**blunder**__ of __**all**__ time. Destroyed our home world!_

The first wormhole that had been created in the Solar System was located between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. Travelers could make near-instantaneous jumps between it and, eventually, any of a dozen wormholes in the vicinity of other stars.

Travelers' most frequent destinations within the Solar System, aside from Earth itself, had been Mars, the large asteroid Ceres, Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede, and Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus. There were mining operations on Mars and Ceres, and those distant moons had ecosystems (one methane-based, three in water oceans far below their surface ice) that held endless fascination for scientists. For travel within the Solar System - and elsewhere, after exiting wormholes - ships had long been powered by nuclear fusion.

But a few decades back, some authority had decided to cut travel times between Earth and the outer moons - and, of course, the existing wormhole itself - by creating another wormhole, to be located between the orbits of Earth and Venus. Travel between Earth and Mars or Ceres would still be direct. But to go farther, travelers would make the relatively short trip to the Inner System Wormhole and jump to its only outlet, the Outer System Wormhole.

Why was it to be located between Earth and Venus, not between Earth and Mars? Supposedly, because there was too much space travel - and, as a consequence, debris - between Earth and Mars.

But it turned out, after the Inner System Wormhole had seen heavy use for years, that it was too near the Sun. Single-outlet wormholes at a comparable distance from other stars hadn't caused problems; but they'd seen much less use. This one had irreversibly damaged the Sun, destabilized space-time in its vicinity, and thrown it completely off the Main Sequence. The Sun, and its planets, were doomed.

Earth should have been habitable, as the Sun grew gradually hotter, for another billion years. And if nothing out of the ordinary had befallen it, the Sun shouldn't have entered its red giant phase for more than _five_ billion years.

Actually, scientists expected the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies to collide before then, so no star's fate could be predicted with confidence beyond two billion years. But now, _nothing_ could be predicted for the Sun in terms of its remaining life-span...except that things would never get better, only worse.

And for humans, it didn't much matter whether Earth would wind up as a dry, dead world with Venuslike temperatures or be engulfed by the swollen star. Either way, it would never again support life.

But humans were a resilient bunch. Their original purpose in colonizing had been threefold: to prevent overpopulation of Earth or any other single planet; to gain access to other star systems' mineral resources; and _to assure the survival of the species if any segment of it was wiped out by a catastrophe_. They'd anticipated only _natural_ disasters; but they had at least envisioned the possibility of losing Earth. And now that it was actually happening, the horror would be mitigated by the low death toll.

MacLeod knew they'd absorb this tragedy, learn valuable lessons, and move on.

_Still, if I'm destined to die now, maybe I would have preferred to die a little sooner, without knowing what was going to happen..._

_No. Every moment, of every life, is precious!_

_My greatest regret about dying now, in this way, is that my father will die with me._

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But at that moment, his father let out a yelp. Then: "MacLeod! I see it - I actually see it!"

MacLeod opened his eyes and snapped to attention. "Wh-what? The coastline?"

"No. The scientists' compound!"


	4. Chapter 4

"That design still bothers me," Methos said fretfully. "I'm sure I've seen it before, and I should know what it means - but I can't remember."

MacLeod was glad he could hear his father's voice inside his helmet. Thus far, at least, their "all-environment" suits were holding up.

But he was surprised that Methos could get so many words out, as they battled hot, hurricane-force winds that threatened to sweep them off their feet. Off their feet _and_ what had once been a road, and into the burning brush that was all they could see on either side. The winds had forced them to bring the plane down miles from their destination.

And while he was thankful communication hadn't broken down, MacLeod couldn't understand Methos's concern about the "design" on the scientists' roof. When they could manage to talk, that was seemingly _all_ Methos wanted to talk about.

MacLeod would have liked to say, "I didn't get much of a look at it - was thinking more about the plane, once you'd identified the compound.

"But the design on the roof was never meant to be important, was it? Just something big and bold, in fresh, luminous paint, to let volunteer pilots know they'd reached the right place.

"I'd gotten the impression the pilots who'd been here _had_ learned what it meant - and didn't pass it on, because it wasn't important to anyone but the scientists."

He knew he couldn't say all that - and it wouldn't have satisfied Methos, anyway. So he tried to recall what he'd seen on the roof. And when the wind briefly let up, he said, "It looked to me like a couple of...trees, maybe? With two disks above them. Maybe the trees were just trees, not symbols for anything else. And the Sun and Moon overhead. It could be a logo...for a university, government department, whatever."

"Maybe it is a logo," Methos conceded, "and that's why it strikes me as familiar. But I keep having this feeling that I should know exactly what it means!

"And for some reason, I _am_ sure the 'trees' are trees. But not just any old trees. Special trees."

"You'll be able to ask the scientists about it when we get there," MacLeod pointed out. _**If**__ we get there. And if the scientists are still there, alive._ "And even before then - the roof was sloping, so we'll be able to see it from the road. Maybe you just need a closer look at it to, uh, refresh your memory."

Methos grunted. If he'd meant to say anything else, he stopped - understandably. They were suddenly hearing, from overhead, a roar that could mean only one thing.

Another plane was arriving...and not gently.

x

x

x

When they'd stumbled through that burning brush and reached it, they were relieved to find it right side up, the lone occupant conscious and already struggling out of it. He or she - it was impossible to tell, at this point - was, of course, another stranded volunteer, wearing an "all-environment" suit identical to theirs.

_"Road!"_ MacLeod yelled, waving to indicate the direction.

The newcomer gave a grateful nod, then ran through the flames with them, not requiring any help.

On reaching the slightly more tolerable "environment" of the road, all three collapsed in a heap.

As they disentangled themselves, MacLeod found himself looking straight into the newcomer's faceplate. Before he'd seen any other evidence even of gender, he recognized a pair of striking green eyes. And blurted out, _"Cassandra?"_

She'd somehow recognized him at the same moment. _"Duncan!"_

Then she looked at his companion. In a tone that was barely cordial, she continued, "Oh...and Methos."

Methos said awkwardly, "Uh...hello, Cassandra."

MacLeod cringed. _Of all times for the two of __**them**__ to be thrown together!_

The last he knew, Cassandra had occasionally cooperated with Methos, but she'd never really forgiven him for what he'd done - and hadn't done - when the Horsemen held her captive back in the Bronze Age. She'd been his slave, his woman, and she'd thought they loved one another. But then Kronos had demanded Methos share her, sexually, with him. Methos hadn't dared risk what might have been a fight to the death; so he'd weakly agreed. _She'd_ managed to stab Kronos and escape, with no help from her "lover."

MacLeod knew that hadn't been a case of simple cowardice on Methos's part. There'd been a better than fifty-fifty chance that he could have killed Kronos. But in an age when all Immortals were "out of place," eerily different from other people, he'd thought of Kronos as his "brother" for so long that he couldn't face the prospect of life without him. And he had at least let Cassandra escape, when he could have caught her and brought her back.

But now, there wasn't much time for conversation - friendly or not. MacLeod was sure Cassandra had learned long ago that Richie Ryan hadn't really been killed, by him _or_ Ahriman, and the family relationships had come to light: he knew Methos was his father, Richie his son. He wouldn't have to go into all that.

Instead, he said, "If I'd been sure you were still alive, and close enough to hear about this crisis, I would have known you'd volunteer. You've always cared about children."

He knew without asking that she was headed for the compound for the same reason he and Methos were. Her crew could only accommodate all the children they'd found by leaving an adult behind, and she was aware she'd enjoyed by far the longest life.

She nodded. "I would have known you'd volunteer, too."

Undoubtedly referring, as he'd been, to both the original mission and the choice to stay behind.

Methos made what might have been a throat-clearing sound. Then he looked at her and said, "I'm sure you're wondering whether _I'm_ only here because I _wanted MacLeod to be left with a good impression of me._

"And the truth is..._I don't know."_

After a sharp intake of breath, Cassandra said softly, "I...respect you for admitting that."

MacLeod himself was stunned.

A moment later, she asked Methos, "Are you still providing for Darius's baby son?"

"Yes," he assured her. "And other kin of ours will give him a good home if MacLeod and I die here."

_That's true, even if it turns out to be Nick,_ MacLeod realized. _We actually do think of Nick as kin, because - long, long ago - he was Richie's brother-in-law. And that makes him Dare's uncle. Even though Nick was just the __**adopted**__ brother of Richie's mortal wife!_

He heaved a sigh of relief at Cassandra's having decided to be at least civil to Methos.

None of them had yet gotten to their feet. And just as they attempted it, they were hit by a blast of heat that flattened them.

It lessened after about a minute, and they all struggled up. MacLeod was disturbed by the static he heard in his helmet...and even more concerned when he looked down, and saw that their suits were visibly singed.

The three exchanged troubled looks, but none of them put their fears into words.

x

x

x

As they began walking cautiously along the road, Cassandra said, "I'm sorry you had to be delayed coming after me. I would have made a better landing, but that design on the roof spooked me. I know I've seen it before, and I can't remember where."

Even as MacLeod was thinking _The confounded "design" again?,_ Methos chimed in, "Me too! I can't get it out of my mind."

Cassandra replied, "It still...troubles me."

_Guess I should be thankful the static's died down, and I can hear them._

"I don't think I'd seen it before," he said. "But if it seems familiar to two out of three people, it _must_ be an organization logo of some kind." By implication, nothing dangerous.

Under the circumstances, he thought, it _couldn't_ be dangerous, or in any way "unwholesome." He'd spoken with volunteers who'd been here, met the scientists. There was nothing sinister about them: they were heroic saviors of children!

Why were his companions so concerned about what someone had painted on a roof, when they were facing a myriad of real, life-and-death dangers?

To avoid thinking about the real dangers? That would be out of character for Methos. For Cassandra as well, if she was still the person he remembered...and if she wasn't, she wouldn't be here.

Methos suddenly stopped walking. "I just had...a very bad thought."

Predictably, Cassandra asked, "About the design?"

But Methos said, "No, something else. People have been saying all along that these scientists seemed to be staying too long, needlessly putting their lives in danger...

"Could it be that they were part of the group that designed the wormhole - and because they had guilt feelings, they came here to _commit suicide?_ Meaning there _never was_ a plan for a ship to pick them up?"

MacLeod suppressed a gasp.

And realized, for the first time, just how fervently he wanted to survive. All his hopes had been pinned on that ship...

To his relief, Cassandra spoke up immediately. "No, I'm sure that's not it! I've learned these scientists are a youngish - by our standards - married couple, Miko Jinmari and Xanda Veniti. I don't know much about them, beyond their names. But those are definitely their original names, the only ones they've ever used. I've also learned the names of all the scientists who were involved with the wormhole...and they aren't on the list."

Both men relaxed.

Slightly.

Momentarily.

Then they were hit by a worst-yet wall of heat.

x

x

x

Exhausted and overheated, all three "Original Immortals" were literally crawling by the time they reached the fenced compound.

MacLeod struggled to his feet, and saw at once that the fence wouldn't be a problem. They were only a few yards away from a gate, and it already stood open.

As for the compound itself, it appeared to consist of a modest-sized house, a smaller structure that was probably a workshop, and a very small hangar. MacLeod's admiration for the scientists soared, as he realized they must have collected scores of children using nothing better than an aircar. Flying at low altitudes, stopping frequently to refuel - when "refueling" would have necessitated _finding _fuel, in abandoned cities.

Before trying to take a step, he looked for Methos and Cassandra - and was relieved to see that they'd also managed to get up. He hoped they were in better shape than he was. He was way too hot - meaning that his suit was malfunctioning. The static in his helmet drowned out any other sounds that might have been coming through. And _all_ their suits, which had once been off-white, were now a charred black. An important outermost layer had been burned completely off.

He tried to ask the ridiculous question, "Are you two all right?" But he couldn't hear even his own voice.

He noticed both his companions' helmets were tilted backwards, meaning they were looking _up_.

And then he remembered. _Of course. The "design"! It should be visible from here._

He refused to believe it could be important. But he certainly wanted to see what all the fuss had been about.

He'd been wearing a helmet long enough that his eyes had made the adjustment to viewing his surroundings through a faceplate; he knew that wouldn't be a problem. So he looked up. Needed to take a few shaky steps backward...

x

x

x

Then he could clearly see the sloping roof, and the large images that had been painted on it - luminous, and all a silvery white, to achieve the best contrast with the dark background. Even so, he realized, it wouldn't have been visible from the air if all the surrounding vegetation hadn't been burned - tragically - almost to the ground.

MacLeod was sure he'd never seen the design before.

But he thought it was beautiful.

As he saw it, there were two trees, side by side, of identical height. They were spiky-looking trees; but he was sure the "spikes" were stylized leaves. The artist couldn't have taken the time to paint detailed leaves, even if he or she had the talent; and they wouldn't have been recognizable from the air, anyway. Besides, the need for an overall silvery white color made total realism impossible.

Two separate trees...but some of their branches were entwined.

And above them, two disks, identical in size.

He was sure he knew what the images meant.

_The trees symbolize humanity...in its two forms, male and female. Completely equal! Neither one dependent on the other...yet joined, as if by choice. Striving to continue living and growing._

_Why trees? Because humans have always had a special love for them. When I was young, there were trees that could live for thousands of years. Far longer than the humans of that era - except for Immortals, and very few knew about us. So trees also symbolize life._

_And the disks represent Earth's Sun and Moon. Shown as the same size because of the...somehow more than coincidence...of the Sun and the Full Moon having appeared, throughout human history, to be the same size when viewed from Earth._

_Implying that the Sun and Moon, like male and female, are equal. And there's a sense in which - in their significance for life on Earth - they were equal! The Sun's importance is obvious. But the Moon is unique in its large size, relative to the planet it orbits. We've known for millions of years that it formed from debris after a chance collision between Earth and a smaller planet. Later, its being here slowed Earth's rotation rate, reduced the frequency of reversals of the magnetic poles, created tidal pools...all of which aided evolution. Without the Moon, Earth could never have supported life as complex as ours._

He saw the symbolism of the scientists' design as...touching. Bittersweet, in its recollection of a dying world. But not pessimistic, since the intelligent species native to that world - its _product_, continuing its "equality of two" - would still live and thrive.

What he didn't understand was how anyone could have found it alarming.


	5. Chapter 5

While MacLeod had been focused on the "design" - probably, for no longer than a minute or two - he'd almost forgotten his physical discomfort and the static in his helmet. He was reminded of both when a hand gripped his arm, and a voice cut through the static.

"Don't look at it!" Methos was saying. "It's dangerous...makes you think things...not right...there's something wrong about the _place_..."

"Wh-what?" MacLeod wasn't prepared for this. "Methos, the 'design' is completely harmless!"

"No. The 'design'...doing things to my mind...but it's _more_ than that, it's the _place_..."

MacLeod heard Cassandra talking in the same rambling way. He wasn't sure whether they were talking to him, to each other, or simply to themselves. To make matters worse, he could only catch fragments of what they were saying, through the static.

"Something about the place...wrong, all wrong...it's not about Earth...makes me remember things...no, imagine things...something about the place...can't be...the 'design'...impossible...destabilization of space-time?...wouldn't affect a planet that way...it's not about Earth...doing things to my mind...the 'design'...something about the place...don't look at it...it's not about Earth...need to get away from this _place_..."

He grabbed Methos and took a close look at him. While faceplates didn't impede vision after one's eyes had adjusted to them, the features behind _other_ faceplates could only be seen clearly at close range.

He saw now that Methos's face was beet-red, and there was a wild look in his eyes.

_It's the heat,_ MacLeod told himself. _Cassandra must be as bad off as he is. And I probably don't look much better, but I'm the only one who hasn't begun hallucinating._

He was sure he himself had the equivalent of a high fever. His suit control could have told him his exact temperature, but he didn't want to know._ Couldn't trust the suit's readings now, anyway._

What he could do was dismiss his companions' ravings - and while he was still able, try to get all three of them into that compound.

He realized he no longer thought there was much hope. He'd wanted to believe that when they got this far, they'd see a "parked" spaceship, that had been waiting as long as possible for castaways like them to straggle in. But there was no ship: anything that size would be in sight by now. So if the rescuers the scientists expected hadn't already left with them, they probably weren't going to show up at all.

But he and his companions might still find some temporary relief from the heat in the compound. And if the scientists were stranded as well, they could make new friends before dying together. He wanted to meet those scientists and express his appreciation for all they'd done - though he certainly would have preferred it be under other circumstances.

At this point, he didn't have the strength to drag Methos or Cassandra anywhere. But he'd come up with a plan.

"Methos! Cassandra!" Yelling, to be sure of being heard and getting their full attention, he proclaimed, "_I'm_ going into that compound, with or without you!"

He ignored their cries of "No!" Evaded Methos's attempt to grab and hold him.

His intended "stride" toward the gate lost some of its impact when he found himself so wobbly that he had to clutch the fence for support. But he made it, and stumbled into the compound.

With Methos and Cassandra - as he'd expected - barely a step behind him.

He wouldn't really have deserted them. Never! But he'd guessed, correctly, that they wouldn't risk calling his bluff. If they actually believed there was some terrible danger in that compound, neither of them would let him face it alone.

x

x

x

They staggered toward what seemed the most logical destination - the house. But before they reached it, they sensed the presence of other humans. (The genetically-engineered species was _exactly_ like Immortals; all "long-lifers" could sense each other.) And what they sensed was definitely coming from the direction of the _hangar_.

_Why would they be in the hangar at a time like this?_ MacLeod wondered. _Even if they were crazy enough to want to go somewhere in an aircar, they couldn't get it off the ground with the winds we've been having._

_Does their being in the hangar mean that for some reason, they've gone to the trouble of making it as heat-resistant as the house?_

_Not that any heat-resistance will hold up much longer, under these conditions..._

By unspoken agreement, they turned and headed for the hangar. Just as two people came out of it and hurried toward them.

MacLeod saw that the scientists - they couldn't be anyone else - were wearing garments that were merely flameproof, not "all-environment." They did have state-of-the-art helmets, but that was all. He winced at the realization that while he was merely hot, _they_ were actually being _burned_ - would doubtless be in intense pain as long as they were outdoors.

Flameproof garments and first-class helmets could be found in stores, anywhere in the Human Worlds. "All-environment" suits were harder to come by. The scientists' not having them told him they hadn't intended to stay on Earth anywhere near this long.

The scientists were making waving gestures - seemingly trying to direct their unexpected visitors toward the house, but indicating they weren't going there themselves.

MacLeod didn't turn back; he was curious about that hangar. And Methos and Cassandra were still with him.

It was only when the scientists were standing right in front of them, and still frantically gesturing, that he realized the transmission of sound to their helmets had failed. All their helmets! None of the five people standing there could hear a thing.

He wasn't willing to be shooed back to the house, with no explanation, when the scientists themselves weren't going there.

There was only one alternative. It would be painful, but it wouldn't kill him...

He unhooked and opened his faceplate.

x

x

x

The result was worse than he'd expected.

Instant agony, taking his breath away. He clutched his face, swayed, knew he wouldn't be able to ask the questions he'd intended -

But instead of blacking out, he saw - from between his fingers - what happened next.

He'd hoped that when he opened his faceplate, one of the scientists would do the same, so they could talk.

Instead, it seemed everyone had taken his action as a sort of signal - a _dare?_ - and done the same. All five faceplates had opened; he couldn't see Methos and Cassandra, but he'd heard the clicks as theirs were unhooked.

The faces he could see - and presumably, the others as well - immediately reddened, then erupted in disfiguring blisters.

But in the second before they became unrecognizable, he thought he'd seen...something he _couldn't_ really have seen!

He'd heard female screams, male howls. Were they driven by something other than pain?

Only a few feet in front of him, a woman's ravaged face...had he really glimpsed her eyes, before they were swollen shut? Was he right in what he thought about them?

If he hadn't met up with Cassandra that day, he wouldn't have had the idea that came to him now.

_Cassandra once had "powers"...and let them atrophy._

_Later, so did I._

_But by then, my powers were greater than hers. __**Do I still have them?**_

He pulled himself together, and made a mighty effort of will._ Heal these faces...not necessarily mine, just the others...just briefly...show what the four of them really look like!_

Even with his eyes closed, the new outburst of screams told him he'd succeeded. And hadn't been mistaken in what he thought he'd seen.

He managed to say, "Using...old 'powers.' Can't...hold it...long. But...this is...no illusion. Showing...true faces!"

Then he opened his eyes, and beheld the truth he'd revealed.

Incredible as it seemed, _Miko Jinmari and Xanda Veniti were exact doubles for Methos and Cassandra._


	6. Chapter 6

Five minutes later they were all sitting on the floor of the hangar, still nursing their burns. No one felt strong enough to begin talking - unless, MacLeod thought, they were just too _stunned_.

His mind was racing.

_Methos certainly __**could**__ have a self-only clone son - any number of them! But in fact, he doesn't. He's never fathered a child younger than me, even after it could be done without harm to a mother. Says he wants to be able to think of me as his only child. Solely his choice, not mine - so he's had no reason to lie._

_**I** don't look like him._ He knew he had his mother's dark hair and eyes; even his height, and his muscular build, came from the MacLeods. Methos was shorter and slimmer. _And I've seen all my male descendants, either in person or in holovids. No doubles for me, let alone my father_

_Could this Miko Jinmari have a faked background, be older than me? An unknown son or brother of Methos, even his **father?** Hard to believe __we never would have realized Methos had a double...we were already living in a "small world," technologically, when there were only a few thousand Immortals!_

_I don't know what's been going on in Cassandra's life. She could have a self-only clone daughter. But what's the likelihood of a lookalike daughter of Cassandra's having met - and married - a previously unknown double for Methos, who's older than I am?_

_The odds against that aren't "astronomical." It's a flat-out impossibility._

But he couldn't think of any other explanation.

And when he stole looks at the others' rapidly-healing faces - minus helmets - he was more sure than ever that the lookalikes were _identical_. They - and he himself - had prepared for Earth's heat by cutting their hair extremely short, then applying chemical treatments that would prevent new growth on their heads or the men's faces. But similar haircuts and bare chins weren't creating an illusion of identical faces; they were just making them easier to recognize.

Easy to recognize; impossible to explain.

_At least I'm getting to see the hangar..._

That refuge had been the closest when their faces were being burned off, and they'd all followed Jinmari's lead in making a run for it. It was indeed as heat-resistant as any building could be. But MacLeod still didn't understand why it had been considered important enough to rate such protection. It contained only the expected aircar, and a smaller vehicle - a two-seater - unlike any he'd seen before. He assumed that was for surface use only. He'd glimpsed an elaborate control panel, so he guessed it was equipped for noting and analyzing the changes that had been taking place in the environment.

"You!" MacLeod forgot about the vehicle when he realized Jinmari was addressing him. "I don't understand what you did out there. But we don't have time to go into it, so all I can say is...thank you."

He said it in such a peremptory way that MacLeod could only gulp, and respond with a faint, "You're welcome."

He was shaken by how much the man's voice - despite a different regional accent - resembled his father's.

Jinmari was fully healed now...and for some reason, he was furious. Seemingly dismissing MacLeod as of no further importance, he turned to Methos and Cassandra and demanded, _"Why in blazes are you_ _**here?**__"_

x

x

x

MacLeod couldn't believe what he'd just heard. _He isn't surprised that doubles for him and his wife exist, only that they're __**here?**_

Methos, deep in thought, said, "We...came to help with the rescue of the children..."

"The _children?"_ Jinmari exploded. "How can that explain your coming to Earth? You knew all of them would be saved - or at least, the last group headed for the wormhole! There are no more children on the planet, alive or temporarily 'dead.' Our scanners showed that an hour ago!"

MacLeod began to wonder _**Am**__ I hallucinating? He thinks Methos should have known, __**before coming to Earth**__, that all the children would be saved...when he himself only learned it an hour ago? This makes no sense at all!_

Methos continued, as if he hadn't heard Jinmari, "I know something's wrong here. Ever since I saw that design on the roof, I've been all mixed up...

"MacLeod..." He turned anguished eyes toward his son. As if confessing a guilty secret, he said, "The design? By the time we got to the compound, I seemed to remember..._painting it!_ Not painting the same picture somewhere else - painting it on this roof!"

Cassandra burst out, "And I seem to remember _watching someone_ paint it on the roof! I don't know who it was. But maybe...maybe I've been...blocking that part of the memory..."

Jinmari, sounding bewildered, said, "Well, of course you painted it on the roof. You painted it, I painted it, whichever..."

"Miko!" Xanda's green eyes were wide with shock. "This is some kind of amnesia. _They don't know who they are!"_

x

x

x

Jinmari looked horrorstruck.

And MacLeod began to have a suspicion about what was really going on. Even an hour before he would have thought it incredible, but now...

Jinmari got up and began pacing, as if undecided what to do next. His wife joined him - whereupon all the others stood up as well.

After less than a minute, Jinmari stopped walking, stood face to face with Methos, and said, "Something...very bad...has happened.

"I don't have time to be gentle about explaining this, so I'm just going to tell you the facts. Please believe me!

"_You and I are the same person._ I'm your younger self, part of a past you don't remember. And our two wives are the same person! Xanda is your wife's younger self, part of a past _she_ doesn't remember. Can you accept that?"

Instead of giving a direct answer, Methos blurted out, "Cassandra isn't my wife."

_"You're_ _not married?"_ Jinmari reacted as if that was the greatest shock he'd had that day.

Xanda let out a gasp. But then she quickly turned to her lookalike. "You've been using the name 'Cassandra'? One that you picked for yourself? It's like an echo of my name, your real name - 'Xanda'!"

Cassandra didn't reply. She seemingly couldn't take her eyes off Methos.

In case his father wouldn't acknowledge it on his own, MacLeod put a hand on his arm and said gently, "Methos...your name is like that too. As if you were subconsciously remembering the name 'Miko.' "

Methos responded by clutching him. "MacLeod...I know there's some truth to this. But I feel as if I'm slipping away from you! As if I'm becoming another person..."

"No, never!" MacLeod assured him. "You'll never lose me..._or_ become a different person. You've always known there was a part of your past you'd forgotten, right? You're just on the verge of remembering it."

_Of course, we thought that "part of his past" had taken place millions of years ago..._

Jinmari was looking at MacLeod with new interest. "Who are you, anyway?"

Methos said proudly, "He's Duncan MacLeod - _my son."_

MacLeod saw a different type of interest in Xanda's eyes. Not sexual..._maternal_. She said, "Your son, and not...Cassandra's?"

Cassandra answered her now, saying, "That's right, Duncan isn't my son. But I treasure him as a friend, too."

Xanda looked at MacLeod and said softly, "So you really must be as young as you look..."

He couldn't imagine what had given her that idea. But it was no more bizarre than everything else he'd been hearing.

Jinmari took control again, saying, "All right. I have to explain what's happened. And like I said, it's very bad.

"You see this?" His gesture indicated the small vehicle MacLeod had noticed. "It's a _time_ _machine_. Xanda and I designed and built it, and we brought it here to test it."

By now, MacLeod felt as if an expected "second shoe" had dropped. Some kind of time distortion _had to_ be involved. But still...time travel was the one great breakthrough humans hadn't achieved, and he couldn't quite convince himself all this was really happening. Methos and Cassandra were shaking their heads in disbelief...

He swallowed hard. And made himself ask the obvious question. "A time machine...do you mean to go back in time, and try to _**prevent -?"**_

"No!" Jinmari shook his head, vehemently. "It may sound cruel, but we're not trying to undo any of the horrors we've seen.

"We think it's _probably_ impossible to change the past. But even if we could, it might do more harm than good. If we could prevent what happened to the Sun, a nearby supernova a century from now - that couldn't be predicted - might wipe out Earth and kill billions. The time travelers who'd 'tampered' would be to blame for all those deaths. And time travelers might _not_ be able to reverse that _second_ catastrophe.

"We just hope time travel can be used to aid historians in making a better record of the past. Finding out what really happened, while being careful not to do anything that could cause significant change.

"The reason we came _here_ is that this time travel design will only work in a region where space-time has been destabilized. We figured that if the capability proved to be valuable, it might be possible to generate a 'bubble' of destabilized space-time around a time machine itself. That would permit first going back in time on another planet...getting from there to a pre-catastrophe Earth via ordinary space travel, the time machine being shipped as cargo...and then reusing the time machine to go farther back into Earth's past. Before space travel existed!

"It would also permit _returning_ from the past. But with this still being early testing, there's no way to return via time machine. So we're just going back fifty years, and the machine is programmed to disintegrate after we've stepped out of it.

"If you're wondering, we'd need hours to change any of that programming - to try, maybe, something like going back only one year. And we don't _have_ hours.

"We can safely travel from the Earth of fifty years ago to another planet, and live through those fifty years again - no big deal - before actually going home. At least, that's what we've been expecting.

"This is where it gets tricky. From _your_ perspective, uh, Methos and Cassandra, you - we - have already done all that! But because you'd somehow lost your memory, you didn't understand what was going on, and you came to the worst possible place."

x

x

x

At this point, MacLeod found himself grappling with not one, but two, inconsistencies.

The biggie, of course, was that Miko and Xanda were going to wind up way more than fifty years in the past. But that could be explained by their technology's still being in the testing stage. And their expecting to go back a mere fifty years explained Xanda's thinking _he_ was young.

_Here's the other problem. I'm sure Cassandra told me, long ago, that those Bronze Age nomads had found her as a baby. And she'd only had her first death when the Horsemen attacked!_

But as he thought about it, he realized there could be simple explanations.

_Methos knew from the start that she'd already been a full Immortal. But since she obviously hadn't known, he assumed her first death had been recent, the result of an accident. And he didn't enlighten her. He probably wanted to pretend he'd performed a magical feat by restoring her to life!_

_She may have thought at first that everyone was sensing the Horsemen, because they were supernatural beings. And later, that she'd been able to sense them while she was still a pre-Immortal because there were so many to be sensed - or just because of the normal differences in our sensing ability._

_At that time, she probably knew she'd been an amnesiac adult when the nomads took her in. But she so wanted to be "normal" - at least by Immortal standards - that during the millennia that followed, she convinced herself she'd been a foundling._

x

x

x

When he refocused on what Jinmari was saying, he realized their situation was indeed "very bad."

"These surges of heat are coming at random intervals," Jinmari told them. "We can't predict the timing, but every one's worse than the last. According to the calculations we've made, the _next _one will kill any long-lifer who's still here! Heads will crumble and disintegrate, like everything else - there's no kind of 'protection' that will save us.

"Xanda and I will leave in the time machine," he said wretchedly. "But we'll have to do it _knowing_ we'll lose our memories - somehow lose _each other_ - and fifty years down the road, come back here and immediately be killed! We can't even take notes with us, to try to compensate for the memory loss. We don't have devices here that we could record them on, or writing materials."

MacLeod was tempted to tell them he knew they'd go back in time more than fifty years (without revealing how _much_ more), so they could at least anticipate lifetimes of more than fifty additional years. But he decided it wasn't his place to tell them anything.

_Maybe their time machine will work as planned, and they'll conclude that being mentally prepared for the __**possibility**__ of memory loss will actually __**prevent**__ it? They'll be so encouraged that they'll build another machine, fifty years in the past, experiment with generating their "bubble" of destabilized space-time - and __**that's**__ what will hurl them back millions of years and wipe out their memories?_

_Whatever's going to happen, "suggestions" from a non-scientist like me could only make matters worse._

He saw that Methos and Cassandra were embracing, both in tears. And when they saw him looking at them, they reached out to pull him into the embrace.

"I...think I remember everything now," Methos said in a choked voice. "Cassandra...I'm so sorry...about what I did to you, when we met again in the past! If I'd even told you that you'd already been a full Immortal, you might have begun remembering other things. And then, if I'd protected you...and we'd stayed together...we might have remembered who we really were..."

"Not your fault," she told him. (Words MacLeod had never thought he'd hear her say.) "I'd been just as...dependent...on that nomad tribe as you'd been on Kronos. If their old medicine man had still been alive, my first loyalty would have been to him, not you.

"And if we'd stayed together and remembered who we were, we wouldn't have Duncan!"

On hearing that, MacLeod felt tears well up in _his_ eyes. He let them come - the first tears he'd shed during this crisis - and knew a blessed relief.

Methos and Cassandra had found each other again...Miko and Xanda were sharing a private moment as well...and for the first time, he felt truly at peace. He didn't want to die, but he was reconciled to it. He'd had a long life, and this wouldn't be the worst of ways to go. The son and grandson he cherished - and yes, Nick, who'd become almost a brother - would be proud of him.

But even if it wasted moments of precious time, there was a question he had to ask.

"Methos? Cassandra? There's something I don't understand.

"When we were outside the compound, you were...raving, I have to call it...about the place being dangerous, making you have strange thoughts. I understand now that it had awakened your old memories. And that was frightening, because it made you doubt everything you'd thought you knew.

"But the most eerie thing you kept saying was 'It's not about Earth.' What did you mean? In this situation, how could _anything_ have been 'not about Earth'?"

Methos somehow managed to smile. "That referred to the _design_. On the roof, remember?"

"Uh, yes..."

"The design had nothing to do with Earth! It was our 'signature.' A tribute to our home planet, Silverthorn...and a symbol of our love. Cassandra - that is, Xanda - had the idea and sketched it, and I painted it on the roof.

"The trees were the beautiful silver thorn trees native to the planet. But like I thought, 'special' trees. On our wedding day, we planted two of them. We trained their branches to intertwine. Every century, on our whatever-hundredth anniversary, we planted and trained another pair.

"And the disks were Silverthorn's two moons. Very, very rarely, they're both visible and full, and look exactly the same size. It's thought to be a good omen. And we saw them like that on our wedding night."

Both men - and Cassandra - were smiling through more tears.

MacLeod shook his head._ So that's why volunteer pilots said the design was only important to the scientists..._

But it was important to _him_. He told the others, "I saw meanings in it that you hadn't intended, meanings that _were_ relevant to Earth. So maybe, without knowing it, you'd...tapped into something universal."

x

x

x

Ten minutes later, MacLeod stood beside Methos and Cassandra as their younger selves prepared to get into the time machine. He still felt as though everything that was happening was..._surreal_. He might wake up at any moment and find himself back aboard his ship...

Then Xanda turned to face them, her eyes shining. And said, "Duncan, you don't have to die here! We want you to come with us.

"Obviously, we can't take...our older selves. But there's no reason why we can't take you! We're going to lose our memories, and Miko will actually _father_ you at some point. But by then, you will have started a new life. You probably won't be anywhere near your child self, so there won't be any conflict.

"And even assuming you'll also have lost your memory, there's no reason to think you'll be drawn back here. It's your _younger_ self who'll be coming here...with his father.

"Please, come with us!"

MacLeod was stunned. That possibility had never crossed his mind.

_I remember thinking Xanda had "motherly" feelings for me. She imagines I'm less than fifty years old..._

_I can't go with them under false pretenses. And if I tell them I'm older, there will have to be more explanations._

That wasn't the only problem: he knew the time machine was designed as a two-seater.

While Jinmari wasn't disagreeing with Xanda now, he recalled that when they'd been having a whispered conversation a few minutes before, Jinmari had looked alarmed.

And the most important consideration: he wasn't willing to desert his father. He'd promised, "You'll never lose me..." Even if _both_ lookalikes were technically his father, Methos was the one he knew and loved.

So he backed away from the time machine, and said firmly, _"No."_

Methos spoke up...sounding as if the words were being dragged out of him. "I hate to say this, Xanda...but MacLeod is right. You _can't_ take him with you.

"We got here before the time machine could depart. So the entire 'past' Cassandra and I remember - _including my fathering MacLeod_ - must be no more than a _probability_. You can't risk trying to send a grown man back in time in a reality in which he was never _born!_ It might cause more damage - irreversible damage - to space-time itself.

"The only 'safe' course..." His voice broke. He choked back a sob, and continued, "The only 'safe' course - to avoid changing the past in ways that might be dangerous - is for no one but you and Miko to go there. That's the way Cassandra and I remember it, just the two of us. I'm sorry!"

Then he buried his face in his hands and moved away; it seemed he couldn't bear to watch the departure, with his son being left to die. Cassandra followed, seeking to console him.

But MacLeod did mean to watch. As a sorrowful Xanda got into the vehicle with her husband, he wore an encouraging smile.

Then something smashed into the back of his head, and the world went black.

x

x

x

Methos - still holding the helmet he'd wielded as a weapon - told Miko Jinmari, "You'll learn that you're a very good liar."


	7. Chapter 7

Without Cassandra's help, Methos never would have succeeded in calming the frenzied Miko and Xanda, who'd been demanding to know why he'd attacked his son. Questioning his sanity.

Now - with Cassandra at his side, her hand clasped in his - he knew he had to explain quickly.

"I want you to take MacLeod with you," he told them. "In fact, Cassandra and I are _begging_ you to take him. But even though I'm a very good liar, I mean to be honest with you, and tell you what will happen if you agree.

"Since you're really _us_, we knew you'd make the offer. Though our first-person memories of what you're experiencing today are hazy...we don't remember whether _we_ saw and talked with our older selves.

"I know MacLeod well enough that I was sure he'd refuse to go, at least initially. And I thought of a way to catch him off guard and knock him out - because if he heard what I'm going to tell you, he'd _absolutely_ refuse.

"It's true that the entire 'past' Cassandra and I remember is based on a _probability_.

"Evidently, that doesn't make it less real. Precisely because it _is_ 'probable,' it's the only version of the past that - in a sense - currently exists. The past that's influenced our 'present.'

"The flesh-and-blood man I just knocked out is very real! And the truth is that _we remember his having been in the time machine with us_ - even though it hasn't happened yet_._ We _did_ take whatever risks we thought were involved.

"So the past will be changed if you don't take him.

"Unfortunately, there are reasons why you'll _want_ to change this past.

"With a third person crammed into the machine, it will malfunction - badly. That may be what caused the amnesia. But beyond that, you'll be hurled way farther back in time than you intended. At least five million years."

He had to pause, because he couldn't have been heard over their gasps of horror.

"And you'll be separated - probably winding up in different eras. Cassandra and I eventually met, but our brief time together...didn't turn out well. We hadn't seen each other again for millions of years, until today."

These gasps were barely audible. But he knew that was only because his listeners had absorbed so many shocks that hardly anything could still surprise them.

"I remember most of my youth now. So I know _I was the last Avatar._"

He also knew _Xanda_ had been killed by Ahriman - been dead for years. When she reappeared, she'd remembered that he'd been fighting Ahriman, but not that she herself had been absent at any point. He'd never told her their memories differed. Hers were the ones that agreed with everyone else's! Perhaps they were, in some sense, as "real" as his.

_When __**MacLeod**__ defeated Ahriman, it may have been my hang-ups about Cassandra that kept me from remembering the dead might come back to life..._

He made himself refocus on what he'd been saying. "The _last_ Avatar...the one who succeeded in living through all the millennia that followed without resorting to violence.

"But when I was lost in the past - where I'd forgotten my former life, and a _longivivax_ was a freak - I spent a thousand years as a ruthless killer! Slaughtering whole tribes, raping their women!"

Stunned silence.

"I remember being one of a small minority of long-lifers. The males of our kind could, very infrequently, make the 'normal' women of those eras pregnant. The mothers died after giving birth. But the children were...like us. I actually_ delivered_ my son Duncan MacLeod - who, I think, would want you to know he's five million years old. He was born of love, not rape.

"We called ourselves 'Immortals.' All foundlings - for obvious reasons. All supposedly sterile - very few of us learned we weren't. There were times in history when some Immortals thought they had an _obligation_ to fight one another to the death.

"Our origin was a mystery. Eventually, after we'd come to understand that we did reproduce, we concluded that the first Immortal must have been the result of mutation. When scientists developed the _longivivax_ species, we thought it was the same 'obvious' change in the genome that had once taken place naturally."

He took a deep breath. "But..._within the last hour_, I realized the truth. I - a time-traveling product of modern genetic engineering - was the parent or ancestor of _all_ the others. Except, of course, Cassandra.

"I, who treasured MacLeod as - I hoped - the only child I'd ever fathered, was _the ancestor of an entire race!"_

x

x

x

He let that sink in. If Miko and Xanda didn't take MacLeod with them, and weren't hurled into the distant past, they'd be _annihilating_ an entire race.

_But also, saving all those innocents I slaughtered..._

It was Xanda who spoke up, almost timidly. "You say the two of you - us - did at least meet at some point after the time travel. What became of Duncan? If you'd taken him, where - and _when_ - did _he_ wind up?"

Methos winced. _Of course, I knew they'd ask that_...

Reluctantly, he said, "I have no idea. He may have survived all these years, as Cassandra and I did. Never remembering where he'd come from. Or he may have been flung so far back into the past that he couldn't have survived for a day.

"I only know that in addition to being my son, he's the finest man I've ever met."

Cassandra said, "There's something else you should consider. I was once about to behead Methos" - that produced gasps from both Xanda and Miko - "and _Duncan stopped me_. That was before he'd learned Methos is his father - he was acting out of loyalty to a friend."

Clutching Methos's hand more tightly, she told him, "I knew that at that point, you weren't really with Kronos any more 'voluntarily' than I was. You'd known Duncan would learn Caspian's whereabouts the same way you had, and you'd left a clue there to lead him to Bordeaux. Where you and he, together, could have dealt with all three of your fellow 'Horsemen.' You couldn't have anticipated that I'd come with him - let alone that I'd be careless, and let myself be taken hostage! I was really furious with _myself._

"I would have regretted killing you, even then! I've always been grateful that he kept me from making that mistake."

He murmured a heartfelt, "Thank you." Might that small revelation make a difference?

"It will have to be your decision," he told the younger couple. "If you leave him here, you probably can go back fifty years, still remember who you are, and continue your lives exactly as you've planned." _It will be a reality that's changed in many ways, but you won't be aware of it._ "Cassandra and I just want you to know that for a _**chance**_ of saving MacLeod, _**we'd**_ make the choice we did, all over again."

Miko and Xanda exchanged a long look.

Then Miko said, "Can you help us get him in the machine?"

x

x

x

Being what it was, the time machine didn't have to "take off"; so they never left the hangar. It simply faded from view as a solemn Methos and Cassandra watched, hand in hand.

He'd hoped that when they were alone, they'd have time to shed their clothing and make love.

But that was not to be.

Seconds after the time machine had left, the surge began. Even as they were struggling to secure their helmets - despite knowing it was futile - the roof and walls of the hangar were torn away.

For some reason Methos didn't understand, Cassandra looked up into the blood-red sky and recited:

"Star light, star bright, _**last**_ star I see tonight..."

Then they were hit by a tidal wave of scalding heat.

But for one, otherwise agonizing, moment, they had what Cassandra would have wished for. Blessed awareness of being locked in an embrace, naked, after their "all-environment" garments had melted away.

x

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x

The End


End file.
